Unexpected
by Julia451
Summary: One-shot set just after "Family on the Edge." How could he have let this happen? The plan was perfect, but there was one factor he never accounted for. Viggo tries to make sense of the unexpected complication that completely ruined his most ambitious trap yet. What had he missed? Why had the man done such a thing? MAJOR SPOILERS!


"This is all we found."

Viggo reached across the desk and took the knife his brother held out to him. "His old weapon of choice," he mused aloud as he examined it. Remarkably undamaged except for a new scorch mark and a few old dents. "The dragon?"

"No sign of it."

"Nor of the body, I suppose?"

"None. Probably at the bottom of the sea by now."

"How convenient." Viggo raised his eyes, stood up, and walked around the desk. "Call off the search – bring every last man and ship out. No reason to leave anything for the dragon riders to find when they return to examine the scene."

As his brother headed for the door, Ryker couldn't resist saying, "Waste of time in the first place. There's no way he could have survived."

Viggo stopped in his tracks and turned rigidly around. "What did you say, brother?"

"I said, there's no way he could have survived."

There was a long pause as Viggo stared at him with that infuriating half-smile on his face. He eventually raised the knife and looked down at it again, then burst into his trademark smug grin as he started pacing around the room. "You know what the trouble is with knife throwers, big brother?"

Knowing the man only asked questions he already knew the answer to, Ryker simply gave him his preferred response: "What?"

"They are inherently unpredictable. They can strike rapidly, from all directions, with a variety of different weapons for different purposes. There's no time to assess where the next threat will come from or how soon or of what nature it will be. You cannot defeat them by attempting to predict their next move, only by having every possible opening covered so that all potential moves are blocked."

Always relishing the rare chance to point out his brother's mistakes, Ryker narrowed his eyes and said, "You sure left us wide open today."

The remark caused no change in the leader's face or demeanor or voice, except that he clenched his fist more tightly around the hilt of the weapon. "Indeed... I thought the plan was foolproof. I accounted for every risk, every cost, every player, all of their skills, every possible contingency, every opportunity for escape, everything that could possibly play a role in today's game."

"Apparently, not _every_ thing," Ryker almost growled. He wasn't exactly pleased with today's disastrous results after weeks of hard work and preparation.

"Yes," Viggo agreed, as calm as ever, raising the knife higher. " _This_ was one factor I never included in my calculations. It only takes one unknown impurity to ruin an experiment. Had it not been for this catalyst, the predicted outcome would have been guaranteed. But by the time he struck..." There was a map on the desk, and Viggo stabbed the knife right over the location of the wreckage that until a few hours ago was a fake shipyard. "... it was too late to predict what was coming. Or plan how to deflect it."

Ryker didn't appreciate the insinuation that the men shouldn't have failed in spite of today's surprise, that it was their fault instead of their great leader's. Even though he knew full well that today's net loss was all on their side, he said, "What are you talking about? They got him, didn't they?"

"They failed to realize what target he was aiming for," Viggo slowly explained, as if he was speaking to a five-year-old child. "The man expected to die. His intent was not to save himself but the riders. His strategy may not have maximized his chances for survival, but it accomplished his goal completely. As I said, brother, you can never be sure what they'll throw at you, so you must be prepared for all possibilities. Never assume anything... especially when there's no body."

That was what he was getting at? "You seriously think he's still alive?"

"He's surprised us once. You know what they say about being fooled twice. Until we have proof, I intend to take nothing for granted. As I told you, we are dealing with someone inherently unpredictable."

Ryker's only response to this was, "And here I thought you had him all figured out."

Viggo stroked his chin thoughtfully. "So did I." Ryker, now reaching his breaking point with his brother's insufferable attitude, grit his teeth and left the tent to finish picking up the pieces of today's failure, while Viggo turned his attention to a model of the shipyard on a nearby table.

He'd have to go over the final numbers tomorrow, but all indications so far were that this was his most expensive maneuver yet. Viggo couldn't remember the last time he had devoted such a considerable amount of men, resources, and time to one trap. The cost had gone up every day the dragon riders had failed to take the bait, and he had decided at least twice that it would be more economical to cut his losses and move on (too much other business was getting put off so he could focus on this), but he was too patient to give up. "It will be well worth it," he'd told himself and anyone who'd dared to express doubt in the wisdom of the plan. Eliminating the dragon rider nuisance once and for all was worth any price.

But in the end, he had been cheated. After weeks of stocking and running a phony shipyard and covering every inch of it with concealed catapults and crossbows, he had lost twelve ships, a fortune in weapons and supplies, countless hours of labor, and he had nothing to show for it. The riders weren't a single member shorter, were absolutely none the worse for wear; he had accomplished nothing except, no doubt, to make them more vigilant. Such strategies were only good for one shot – he would never be able to lure the riders into such a trap again. When Viggo compared the resources and energy he'd expended in this scheme to the what he had gained, he considered it his second greatest loss behind the destruction of the marble fortress.

It wouldn't be so infuriating if Hiccup had been the one responsible. Had the boy proven too smart to fall for the trap or, even better, foreseen it and found a way around it, it would have been entertaining and made the game even more enjoyable. But to have one of his expertly, meticulously, carefully crafted plans ruined by that lunatic Berserker was almost unbearable. The fact that his former ally knew him better than Hiccup did and could be expected to see through his plans more easily did not lessen the sting one bit. If anything, it made his miscalculation all the more inexcusable. Viggo Grimborn did not miscalculate, but today, he had. How had he let that happen?

The dragon hunter picked up a model ship as he tried to determine where he went wrong. It was true that he'd always been confident that he understood Heather's deranged brother as well as he understood anyone. When her would-be executioners had reported he'd helped her escape, Viggo hadn't been the least bit surprised, certainly not as much as Ryker...

" _You knew he would save her?!" his outraged older brother gasped._

 _Viggo shrugged as he rearranged the pieces on the board to reflect the current status of the game. "If he had the chance. The men shouldn't have let them talk to each other. I admit, I would like to know what she – or anyone else – said to convince him to join her." He picked up a piece and twirled it between his fingers and thumb. "What happened between the two of you in those caves?"_

" _How?"_

" _Human nature. For good or evil, an older brother will always side with his younger sister, no matter who else he has to betray. It's an instinct they cannot resist." Viggo tossed the piece to him. "You should know that better than anyone, brother."_

" _Then why did you let him do it?"_

" _Because it's of no consequence. Alive or dead, neither he nor Heather are a threat to us when they can't betray our plans, and it couldn't affect the contest for the true grand prize. We have the Dragon Eye, and we are free of not just one but two undesirables. Be satisfied."_

Motivated wholly by self-interest, albeit with no rationality or restraint; no ambition beyond revenge; no moral constraints except the ties of blood – that had been Viggo's summation of Dagur the Deranged. Had he grown complacent? No – Viggo knew that the man was no friend of his and that, given the chance to attack him or his enterprise, he would take it. It was perfectly logical that Dagur would relish the opportunity to thwart any of the dragon hunters' plans. Viggo had added the traitor to his list of enemies, but he hadn't anticipated _this_ would be his next move.

It wasn't the former Berserker chief's motives that made what he'd done today so shocking but how he'd done it. If he wanted revenge, why seek it in a way that assured his death? Many were willing to buy their enemies' lives with their own, of course, but nobody gave their lives to cause their enemy temporary setbacks. As frustrating as today's catastrophe was, the hunters would recover from it. Dagur may have been insane, but Viggo knew him well enough to know that his mind was sound enough to come up with better methods of revenge. He was still capable of self-preservation and strategizing in the interest thereof. So why had he given his life just to blow up a few ships? He could have done that so many other times in so many other ways without putting himself in such danger. He could have risked his life under circumstances where he had more to gain, such as if he thought he could take Viggo or Ryker with him – he would have failed, but if he'd foolishly believed he could succeed, it would have made sense to try. What did he have to gain today that could have motivated him to fly to his doom like that?

The only explanation was that his goal had not been revenge but to save the riders. Viggo had reasoned that out hours ago, but he still hadn't answered the burning question, why? To save his sister? Once again, he could have done that without losing his life in the process. He may not have been able to stop all seven riders, but he surely could have stopped _her_ while the others got themselves killed. The only reason he would arrive first and deliberately set off the trap would be if he had wanted to save _all_ of the riders. Why?

Viggo could see nothing Dagur stood to gain from keeping the riders alive. That meant he only could have saved them because he cared about them. However, that only begged the question, _why_ did he care what happened to them, whether they lived or died? In particular, why did he care about them more than about himself? He knew friends and family were more than willing to risk their own lives for each other, but, last he heard, Dagur and the riders were not friends.

Was it really possible they had called a truce and become friends or allies? Viggo knew even enemies were capable of putting aside their differences to join forces against a common foe, but Dagur and the riders had clearly not been working together – if they had, they never would have let their ally take all the risks while they stayed safely behind. All his men's reports of the incident stated that Dagur came alone, ahead of the rest, as if he was trying to beat them there, which would mean he not only lacked their cooperation but their consent. They obviously were not on the same side, so why had he cared enough about them to sacrifice his life for them?

Viggo returned the ship to its place on the model with a feeling of self-disgust. Spending so much time and effort trying to understand that madman should be beneath him. He should just dismiss his motives as insane and therefore impossible for a rational man to understand, but that would have been not only too easy but dishonest. If anything, by all accounts, the man had seemed saner when he'd attacked the shipyard than he'd ever been before. Besides, whether Dagur's actions today had been sane or insane did not excuse Viggo's failure to account for them.

How could he possibly have prepared for such a turn of events? He'd considered that the riders might seek additional help (whether from back on Berk or from other allies he wasn't aware of), so he'd made sure he had enough firepower to handle a large-scale attack. He'd considered one of them might suspect something, meaning they might try a stealthy approach at first, so he'd ordered the men not to fire at any lone scouts, not until the attack began (had Dagur sneaked in without announcing himself and blasting lava, he would have gotten away unharmed and left the trap unsprung). He'd considered one of them might catch on quickly and warn the others, so he'd made sure the attack would be too quick for them to have a chance to retreat once they were in. He'd considered everything except that one of their worst enemies would see through his scheme and, unable to convince them of the same, protect them by bringing it on himself, sacrificing himself for the sake of those to whom he should have no ties of honor or emotion. If only he knew _why_ – what had driven Dagur to do such a thing – he could prepare for it in the future.

Perhaps he could ask Hiccup next time they met. But that would be admitting how much today's defeat bothered him. It was annoying whenever Hiccup managed to defeat him or his men or spoil his plans but never embarrassing like this was. Viggo would have expected Hiccup to surprise him (in fact, he was thrilled whenever he did), but not someone named Dagur the Deranged. Superior minds impressed him – inferior minds that stole victory from superior minds made him sick.

Viggo knew there was _something_ he was missing, something that would explain why Hiccup's enemy was willing to die for him and his teammates without their support or friendship, something that would have enabled Viggo to prepare for such a player's potential interference if he'd accounted for it while making his plans. Whatever it was, even if he discovered it someday, he hadn't known it when he needed to, and it could change nothing now. The mistake had been made, and he'd paid dearly for it.

The good news was it would be the last time he made such a fatal blunder. The riders weren't the only ones who would be more vigilant from hereon. He could not undo today's disaster. All he could do was make sure that, even if Hiccup's mysterious protector had survived, he would not be able to save him next time.


End file.
